Seiji’s innate greed had made him a frequent visitor, but one day, he’d just stopped going. The man’s plump, smiling face had begun to look like an ugly monster to him.
What he’d seen was a hairy monkey with a bald head and a grin that split its face all the way to its ears. It struck a weird pose with its elbows pressed to its sides, flapping its hands as if imitating a chicken, but when it spoke, its voice was soft and kind:
“It’s so good to see you. Come on, come in; there’s lots of candy today, just like always.”
Needless to say, Seiji had sprinted straight home.
The next day, the drowned body of one of his classmates was discovered in an irrigation canal on the edge of town. At first, the death was thought to have been accidental, but soon after, rumors started to circulate that it had been the work of a pervert, and finally the Candy Man was arrested. He’d taken one of his regular visitors out there and drowned the kid in the canal. The day of Seiji’s last visit had been the day his classmate had died.
His next monster encounter happened four years later, right around the New Year.
“Here, Sei. I’ve got some New Year’s money for you.”
The arm his aunt had extended had been covered with blinking eyes. Seiji trembled uncontrollably, but he’d managed to keep a death grip on the money and mumble “Thanks” before making his escape.
His aunt had always had sticky fingers, and he later heard that she’d stolen a designer bag from another member of her moms’ circle and auctioned it online; naturally, she’d been found out, and a police report was filed. Apparently, she’d whet her appetite shoplifting from supermarkets and had since moved on to all sorts of other crimes. Currently, she was in the middle of a divorce.
The bottom line was that when someone had committed a crime of some sort, they looked like a monster to Seiji. Once he’d figured that out, well, it was obviously best to let sleeping dogs lie. As soon as he saw a person like that, he booked it in the opposite direction.
The world was filled with monsters in disguise.
“Huh?”
Coming to himself with a jolt, Seiji stopped in his tracks.
…Where was he?
He hadn’t been paying attention, and he’d ended up on a street he didn’t recognize.
He looked around, but he didn’t see any signs with the neighborhood name or street numbers. Black wooden fences that seemed to go on forever stretched away in front of him and behind him. Every house he passed was silent, and there was no one else on the street. No crows cawed; no dogs barked. Even the wind seemed to have fallen still.
It felt as if he’d been set down in a corner of some other world.
“…Great.”
He muttered the word aloud, just to make sure he could. What should he do? This really wasn’t good. Ordinarily, asking someone for directions would have been a decent idea, but he didn’t even see nameplates for any of the houses.
“Hmm?”
Suddenly, he noticed a tunnel covered in Japanese ivy up ahead.
When he got closer, there was a sign that said THIS WAY posted beside the entrance, with an arrow pointing into the tunnel.
“What’s up there?”
Was it a café or something? He didn’t even have the funds for a cup of coffee, but surely they wouldn’t charge him just for asking directions.
There was no time like the present, so into the tunnel he went. A green giant towered just outside the exit— No, that wasn’t it: It was a huge sacred anise tree, at least ten meters tall.
Growing up in the country, he’d heard that the fruit from the sacred anise was extremely poisonous and that its local name, shikimi, came from the phrase ashiki-mi or “wicked fruit.” The tree’s branches stretched up as if it were embracing the sky, and dappled madder-red light poured down through its leaves. Below the tree, as if hiding in its shade, stood a European mansion.
“What the—?”
Was it a Western-style café? No, there was no way. With such a sense of grandeur, it had to be at least several decades old. It might even be worthy of cultural property–level status.
Feeling as if his body had been bewitched by a fox spirit, Seiji went through the open gate. At the end of the brick front walk, there was a set of double doors with stained glass windows. One of those doors was standing open, as if in invitation. A paper sign posted above the door said PLEASE COME IN.
For some reason it made him think of the “people-eating place” from Kenji Miyazawa’s short story The Restaurant of Many Orders.
“Um, hello?” Seiji called out, poking his head in like a timid tortoise.
“Welcome.”
The voice spoke so suddenly that he jumped. A girl in a kimono stood in the entryway, in front of an L-shaped staircase. She must’ve been, what, seventeen or eighteen? Her kimono was scarlet; her obi, black satin. Black and vermilion, like lacquer and red ocher. Her black hair was trimmed into a neat shoulder-length bob that simply looked right on her.
“You are our twenty-third guest. Follow me, please.”
“—!”
Seiji gulped. It was her eyes: The dark irises were astonishingly large. The whites weren’t even visible, as if her eye sockets had been set with black glass.
“Um, so…”
But the girl had already turned away and started walking. It seemed too late to say that he was lost and had just been passing by.
“Hmm?”
As they went down a hallway that extended to the right, they passed a goldfish bowl sitting in a bay window. The occupant’s scales were scarlet, and its black-edged fin was shaped like a butterfly. A torachoubi goldfish. Seiji remembered seeing those at the goldfish shop when he was little, in a tank that had a MOST EXPENSIVE PRODUCT tag stuck to it.
Huh? Wait…
Between those black eyes and its coloring, the goldfish bore a striking resemblance to the girl he was following.
“It’s Beniko. I’ve brought a guest.”
Startled, he looked up. The girl had just knocked on a door at the end of the hall.
“Oh! Um, actually—”
If he missed his chance here, he wouldn’t get another one.
Just as Seiji hastily tried to state his business, the girl pivoted to face him. Her black eyes seemed to run him through, and he flinched and fell silent. Taking a step back, she bowed, prompting him. “This is as far as I will take you. Please go in.”
For some reason, he got the feeling that cutting and running would not be tolerated.
Fighting the urge to cry internally, Seiji reached for the doorknob.
Who was waiting in there? He was anticipating a crotchety old gentleman, but his expectations were betrayed the moment he opened the door.
“Huh?”
The room looked like a study.
The right-hand wall was monopolized by bookshelves that reached nearly to the ceiling. Most of the wall in front of him was taken up by French doors, and the drapes that hung from the ceiling resembled theater curtains.
In the center of the room, a Persian rug lay under a table with cat’s-paw cabriole legs. There was something plantlike about the curved lines of the chair backs; Seiji was pretty sure that style of furniture was called Queen Anne.
The room’s master was sitting in one of those chairs.
A kid…?
The boy looked no older than fifteen or sixteen. He had black hair and eyes, and like the girl who’d shown Seiji in, he was dressed in traditional clothes: a kimono in a gray so pale it was almost white, with a cascade of ombre-dyed white peonies blooming from one shoulder all the way down to the hem.
He was so beautiful it was scary. His fair skin was nearly the color of snow, so that the boy himself almost looked like a single peony.
The peony—the king of a thousand flowers.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Please, take a seat.”
His voice sounded as young as he looked, but he spoke like someone much older.
Seiji obediently sat down in one of the chairs, then came back to himself with a jolt. “Oh, um, I— Hrnn?”